Oh, Brother
by Black-Angel-001
Summary: Don and Charlie Eppes are as different as night and day.  Alan wants to see if he can change that.  One-shot, wee-Eppes.


**Oh, Brother**

**Black-Angel-001: so i want to do a numb3rs mulit chap fic but probably won't actually write it for a while...so to tide my thought hamsters fred and george over, a little humor fic featuring our favorite brothers eppes in wee form.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Numb3rs or anything related to it so no suing necessary!**

**Oh, Brother**

Don and Charlie Eppes were brothers, but as different as possible. For one thing, they were several years apart in age. For another, Charlie was a certified genius. But that wasn't all that seperated them. Don prefered sports, Charlie prefered numbers. While Don was a social fiend, Charlie was like a little hermit, even at age seven. If Don thought the tv was on too loud, Charlie thought it was too low. Don liked the cold, Charlie liked the hot. Charlie was an eternal optimist, Don was a forever pessimist.

The only thing they had in common was a few of the Eppes facial features.

Alan Eppes was well aware of his son's differences, had in fact expected some. He didn't expect them to be on opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to those differences, but regardless loved them both the same. It didn't make him stop wondering, though.

Margaret thought his idea was insane and a bit immature, but she insisted he tell her what the result of his expiriment was since she would be out of town for a few days.

Alan's plan was fairly simple: buy a large number of toys and put them in Don's room. Then, he would get sacks of fertilizer and put them in Charlie's room. He wanted to see if he could make the pessimist son an optomist and the optomistic son a pessimist. When the boys were at school, Alan gathered his items and set them up appropriatly, then waited.

The boys came home on schedule; Alan gave them their snack, looked over their homework and sent them to their rooms to change and waited. He heard nothing for the next fifteen minutes when he thought he'd hear excited shouting or crying, from either of them. Curious, Alan headed upstairs.

He reached Don's room first and he carefully pushed the cracked open door in. He looked around the room, taking in his handywork. Toys of every type littered the floor, some the bed. Granted, he'd borrowed alot of them from friends and would end up returning well over half if not all of them by the time this was over but still. Alan turned his attention to his oldest son.

Don was sitting on his bed, still in his school clothes, contemplating the room with such a severe expression Alan thought of an adult contemplating taxes. As the little boy scanned each toy in turn, he would get a pinched look, sigh heavily and move to the next one. Alan watched the process for a minute before he spoke.

"Donny, what's wrong? I thought you'd be happy to have all these toys!"

Don looked at his father. "Yeah, but," he trailed off, looked at the toys, and sighed once more. "But now I've gotta take 'em out of the packages, read the instructions, put in batteries, all my friends are gonna be jealous and they might not like me anymore 'cause they'll think I'm spoiled. They'll break or loose parts and then I can't play with them anymore." Don's long suffering pinched look returned.

Alan's mouth fell open into an 'o' and he quietly stepped out of the room. He headed towards Charlie's room, thinking that this part would be a success at least. What seven year old got excited about fertilizer?

When he opened the door, Alan knew what seven year old: his.

Charlie was moving quickly around his room, looking in the closet, his toy chest, and was moving to under his bed. Alan took in the sight. Several bags of the fertilizer (all made from horse manure the bag said) were propped up in the room, a couple spilled over, Alan was dismayed to note. Margaret was going to kill him for that one. Oh, and the smell, he noted as his nose wrinkled.

Charlie crawled back out from under his bed and began to look again, with a happy excited expression. Finally, Alan couldn't contain his curiosity any longer and had to ask, "Charlie, why are you so happy when your room is full of fertilizer?"

Charlie paused long enough to look at his dad. "Because somewhere in here, there's a pony!"

**Black-Angel-001: lemme know what your thoughts are!**


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